“On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.
For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth. Like the albatross, we first-world humans find ourselves lacking the ability to discern anymore what is nourishing from what is toxic to our lives and our spirits. Choked to death on our waste, the mythical albatross calls upon us to recognize that our greatest challenge lies not out there, but in here.
- Chris Jordan, Seattle, February 2011”

April 03, 2011

February 19, 2011

The Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies), also known as Whēkau or the White-faced Owl, was an endemic owl found in New Zealand, but is now extinct. It was plentiful when European settlers arrived in New Zealand in 1840. By 1880, the species was becoming rare, and the last recorded specimen was found dead at Bluecliffs Station in Canterbury, New Zealand on July 5, 1914

The Laughing Owl generally occupied rocky, low rainfall areas. Being quite large, Laughing Owls were able to deal with the introduced European rats that had caused the extinction of so much of their prey; however, the stoats introduced to control feral rabbits, and feral cats were too much for the species.

November 08, 2010

Few decades back in Russia, almost every building courtyard had a pigeon house(pigeon loft / dovecote). There were two near where I used to live in Moscow near Molodezhnaya street. Why? Pigeons symbolize peace? The need to care for environment and others (bird and non-bird friends)? To be used as messengers during war (haha)? White doves, brown, black and regular gray pigeons were trained to fly around the neighborhood in perfect circles. I loved watching them flying or sitting in their pigeon lofts. Today most of pigeon houses in Russia are abandoned or demolished. Reasons: pigeons spread disease but most importantly care for pigeons asks for money and time. Maybe it’s not cool anymore to have pigeon keeping as a hobby..

“The hobby of pigeon keeping is gaining in popularity in the United States, after having waned within the last 50 years. Both the hobby and commercial aspects of keeping pigeons are thriving in other parts of the world” -Wiki

Read about John Neilko’s flock of 250 pigeons that lives on the roof of the Polonia Democratic Club in Williamsburg, New York - NYMag

June 25, 2010

The discovery, which the researchers reported last week in Nature, supports research showing that birds are dinosaurs, having descended from a group of bipedal dinosaurs called theropods.
Dr. Prum and his colleagues, meanwhile, had set out on a similar quest. Working with paleontologists at the Beijing Museum of Natural History and Peking University, the researchers began to study a 150-million-year-old species called Anchiornis huxleyi. The chicken-sized theropod was festooned with long feathers on its arms and legs.

Above: Mohawk Dinosaur

Scientsts were able to assign color to individual feathers and thus work out color patterns for the entire fossil of Anchiornis huxleyi, a small, feathered, two-legged dinosaur that lived roughly 150 million years ago. The animal would have weighed about four ounces (110 grams) and appears to have had a dark gray or black body and wings with some white feathers that gave it a stripe pattern, plus a reddish-brown crest and speckles on the face. ( Source: New York Times and Discovery News)

October 23, 2009

September 06, 2009

This drawing by Karin Uusikorpi of an owl is incredible. I found it by accident by looking through flickr. Karin writes about herself: ” I am a prairie girl born in Saskatchewan and raised in Northern Alberta. I draw, paint and play with colour. I eventually will get back to making things out of clay. I have made art in some form or another since I was little & still do. I am always picking stuff off the ground and saving it for future use - I am a self proclaimed ‘packrat’ and ‘magpie’ that routinely tries to cull the collection of stuff”

March 21, 2009

March 15, 2009

Amy Ross’ drawings, watercolors and collages have a surreal effect. The drawings are rendered in the style of scientific illustration . It is not easy to distinguish at the first glance where the leg of the mushroom starts and the leg of a human being begins. People’s heads are morphed with mushroom legs and birds are actually flower buds on magnolia trees - Amy plays with similarities and differences of nature’s shapes.

February 18, 2009

Bullfinch (Снегирь, snegir) is a small bird with big round red belly that lives across Europe and Asia. It is widespread in Russia and one can spot lots of them in Moscow city around winter time. Bullfinch birds travel from Siberia to warmer climate of Moscow during winter. They eat mostly red Rowan berries that keep hanging in multiples on Rowan trees even in coldest days. It is quite beautiful to see many red birds around red Rowan berries juxtaposed on the winter snow. Birds look like huge red berries lost in many little ones. I even think that is why the word red in Russian comes from the word beautiful.
I found this ceramic cup that definitely has a watercolor of bullfinch bird on it by Helen Beard, ceramicist and a watercolor artist from England:

February 14, 2009

I love California quails and quails in general. This is what is it says on wikipedia about California quails: “The California Quail is a highly sociable bird that often gathers in small flocks and one of the daily communal activities is the taking of dust baths. A group of quail will select an area where the ground has been newly turned or is soft, and using their underbellies, will burrow downward into the soil some 1-2 inches. They then wriggle about in the indentations they have created, flapping their wings and ruffling their feathers, causing dust to rise in the air.” (so cute!!!)

I love Ptarmigans. Ptarmigans are sedentary species, breeding across arctic and subarctic Eurasia and North America. The Ptarmigan is seasonally camouflaged; its feathers moult from white in winter to brown in spring or summer. Ptarmigan’s feet are fully feathered to maintain body heat and to act as snowshoes during winter.